Zaphod's Fault
by drakensis
Summary: I apologise. I had to write this. The voices in my head wouldn't shut up until I did. I probably owe you a warning. This is a Neon Genesis Evangelion crossover with Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Abandon Sanity All Ye Who Enter Here...


Zaphod Beeblebrox, President of the Galaxy, Instellar Fugitive Extraordinaire and, most recently, Commander of NERV, was having a bad day.

"What in the name of Zarquon is this?" he demanded, spitting out a mouthful of liquid in the general direction of Shigeru.

There was an inquisitive noise from under the upturned bucket that dominated his left shoulder. Zaphod hmphed and raised the bucket to reveal a mouth and chin very much like his own. Raising the glass in one hand so that the mouth could drink he pressed the telephone closer to his ear with his other hand while gesturing with another hand that snaked out from his jacket for Shigeru to hold that thought.

"Nah, I wasn't talking to you, Prime Minister," he said smoothly. "We're still reorganising the mess that that putz Ikari left behind and you would not believe what the idiot who wound up as Director of Technical Services just did."

He paused and the mouth under the bucket took the opportunity to spit out the drink. The bucket fell forwards and covered it again. "No I said you wouldn't believe it. It's that unbelievable, you know what I mean. So what were you calling about."

"Uh-huh," he agreed a moment later. "I heard the same rumour myself. Amazing. I mean, if I told you he and his deputy were crushed under a shoe-shaped spaceship when it made a forced landing, would you believe me?"

There was a chime from the door. "Well there you go then. Look, I've gotta go. Things to do, people to killo-zap, you know." Zaphod threw the phone down on his desk. "Who is it?" he shouted.

"Lieutenant Makoto, sir. I've brought the Third Child."

"Right, right, come in," he sighed. "Don't you go anywhere," he added to Shigeru. "I'm not done with you yet."

Makoto and Shinji entered the office cautiously. Under Gendo the room had been dark and intimidating, with the kabbalah decorating the floor and shadows rather than walls. Zaphod, over the first forty-eight hours of his week-old tenure as Commander of NERV, had transformed it. The lights had been jury-rigged from those normally fitted in a nightclub and the 'mini-bar' was larger than the 1959 Cadillac suspended upside down from the ceiling (the furry dice, in contravention of all known logic, hung towards the ceiling). There was a grand piano behind the desk and disco music was piped in from speakers flanking the desk.

"Right," said Zaphod. "Shirley, you're here because you did that bad thing that you did, whatever it was."

"It's Shinji," Shigeru interjected helpfully.

"Was I talking to you? Do I look like I care what your name is?"

"Not his name," Makoto said patiently. After his first nervous breakdown from dealing with the Commander's miniscule attention span, the new deputy commander had taken him aside and explained that yes, Zaphod was deeply, deeply stupid but that he was also a genius and that their eight figure salaries relied upon his good will, since he was supplementing them out of his own pocket. Makoto wasn't entirely sure where Beeblebrox's spectacular wealth had come from, but rumour had it that he'd taken a large portion of NERV's liquid wealth with him to Las Vegas and won big. "His name," he said, pointing at Shinji. "Is Shinji."

"Yeah?" said Zaphod. "I'm Zaphod. So what?" Receiving no response he shrugged and turned to Shinji. "So kid, that thing you did, what was it?"

"I disobeyed Misato's orders," he whispered.

Zaphod nodded both his heads. "You disobeyed Misato's orders," he repeated, then frowned. "Hey, you disobeyed Misato's orders?" he said, a look of outrage spreading across his face. "What, by the nine purple suns of shinobi are you people playing at?"

The other three people in the office shuffled their feet and looked at the gaudy throw rugs that covered the floor.

"What's Misato giving orders for?" Zaphod demended. "She's my freckin' bridge bunny! Her and Ritsuko and that Maya chick don't give orders! What are you tryin' to do, specs?" he asked Makoto. "Get the kid in trouble?"

"He let two civilians into the entry plug," Makoto protested. "Two children from his class at school."

"And?" Zaphod asked. "What, are they friends on yours? Or girls, cuz' it looks kind of cramped in there so I've gotta admire your initiative..."

"Just a couple of guys," Shinji muttered.

"Oh." Zaphod deflated.

"Suzuhara Toji and Aida Kensuke," Makoto said.

"Suzuhara?" Zaphod said. "Ain't he the kid who, whoa, that's the guy that decked you! Damn, kid. You let him get into your giant robot thing? What're they teaching you at that school?" Obviously incensed, he stood and paced around the office, gesturing to himself with all three arms. "I can't think like this," he declared. "I need a drink." He stared at the mini-bar and then his bucket nodded. "Right, kid. Go over there and make me a PanGalactic GargleBlaster!"

Shinji hesitated.

"Well! Go on!" Zaphod said, sinking back into his chair to sulk and cast dark looks at Shigeru.

After a few minutes, Shinji returned with a steaming flourescent drink. "Righteous!" Zaphod declared and grabbed the glass, chugging it with enthusiasm. His eyes widened and he wordlessly shared the rest of the concoction with his other head. "Now that," he declared, "Is what a PanGalactic GargleBlaster is supposed to taste like!"

Placing the glass reverently on the desk, he propped his feet up on the desk a smug grin on his face and presumably under the becket. "That got the old synapses burning, boys," he declared. "I have a plan that can solve all NERV's problems. Am I the frood or am I the frood?"

The three other people in the office nodded cautiously, simulating agreement to disguse the fact that none of them had any idea what he was on about.

"You," Zaphod said grandly, pointing to Makoto, "are to put little Miss Misato in her place. I don't care what you do: whips, chains, love motels, but I don't want to hear any more of this orders thing."

"You," he said, pointing another finger at Shinji, "are the new Director of Technical Services. Anyone who can make a PanGalactic GargleBlaster of such awesome quality is wasted on whatever it is that you were doing before.

"You," a third index finger indicated Shigeru, "can do whatever the kid was doing before now. 'Cause you obviously aren't up to anything more important."

Shigeru paled. "Piloting an Evangelion, Commander?" he asked.

"Yeah, whatever," Zaphod said cheerfully. "So get out of here, the news is on shortly and I need to see if I'm on it."

Zaphod, it should be mentioned, had been the major news article of each and every day this week. Some TV stations were considering the possibility of just renaming the Evening News as the Zaphod Show if they could arrange for a camera crew to follow him around 24-7.

Zaphod was just reaching for the remote, ignoring the panicked expressions of Shigeru and Shinji (Makoto just had a silly grin on his face), when phone rang. "Yeah, whaddaya want?" Zaphod snarled into the phone. He paused. "Oh, hi Trillian."

"Whaddaya mean my cousin Ford Prefect's calling? Like he'd be caught dead on this hick planet..."

Zaphod paled. "What Vogon fleet?"

ntbc...


End file.
